I’m a researcher and editor interested in how we find information about risk, understand it, and how data mediates that information.
Cover Art: Nasreen Mohammedi, Untitled, 1960
About Me
I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, where I work to study climate risk, climate data, and how people understand the two.
I use mixed methods (think qualitative research, network analysis and machine learning, and human-centered design) to study how people find information about the impacts of climate change and climate data modeling on their lives and finances, relative to their (dis)belief in climate change and their understanding of the impacts of climate change.
My background is in journalism: I previously led projects studying media ecosystems and networks as a researcher/community manager at the MIT Center for Civic Media. I’ve worked on digital investigations at the Harvard Kennedy School and trained journalists on best practices for reporting on mis/disinformation.
I’ve also led collaborative design thinking projects focused on post-disaster mental health, disease forecasting and scenario modeling, and health communication at La Victoria Lab and Innovate Carolina. Before that, I worked on digital projects at The Associated Press.
I hold a PhD in information and library science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a M.S. in comparative media studies from MIT, and bachelor’s degrees in journalism and Romance languages from the University of Georgia.
Skills
Project Management
Digital Strategy
Editing
Audience Engagement
Mis/Disinformation Reporting
OSINT
Design Research
Computational Social Science
Critical Data Studies
Risk Communication
Data Mining and Visualization
Selected Projects
Abortion Near Me? The Implications of Semantic Media on Accessing Health Information
How do search engines affect the ways that people find health information related to abortion access?
Media Cloud is an open source platform for media analysis, using a crawling hyperlink structure to study media ecosystems on the open web.
Targeting Greta Thunberg: A Case Study in Mis/Disinformation
In this report from the German Marshall Fund and Media Cloud, we examine misinformation and disinformation related to the climate-change activist Greta Thunberg, who was smeared by a number of conspiracy theories.
Swiped: How Dating Apps Harm Marginalized Communities
This report, through the Data Culture Group at Northeastern, investigates the potential harms marginalized communities may face when using dating apps.
A Moment of Change: Challenges and Opportunities When Covering Hate Speech and Mis/Disinformation
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, news coverage of hate speech and mis/disinformation has skyrocketed. To better understand the challenges and changes associated with this inflection point, we conducted 10 in-depth interviews with prominent journalists covering this beat. These interviews underscore critical debates in the field about platform accountability, the news agenda and news organizations’ infrastructure and support systems.
Libremente was an SMS-based program designed to provide survivors of natural disasters with mental health exercises, resources and tools. We tested our program in communities in Peru and Puerto Rico.
When to Start Freaking Out: Audience Engagement During Disease Outbreaks
My MIT Master’s research examined U.S.-based audience engagement on social media during disease outbreaks, situating audience risk perception against the Ebola and Zika outbreaks to study news sensationalism, social media business practices, and risk communications.
AP Books
While working on digital projects at The Associated Press, I helped launch the AP Books product vertical, curating content and providing editorial strategy for AP Books including “Life and Death in ISIS,” and “My Time with the Kings.”